Ed Notes Online: Shaun King: Using 'working-class voters' as shorthand for white people is insulting and rooted in racism

Shaun King: Using 'working-class voters' as shorthand for white people is insulting and rooted in racism

Something ugly happens when "working class" becomes shorthand for white. It projects the very distinct impression that working people are white. ...

Please stop saying that the Democratic Party has lost "working-class voters." It hasn't. It's an insult to the tens of millions of working-class voters of color who have voted faithfully for decades for each and every Democratic candidate thrown their way....

while I agree with the basic philosophy of Bernie Sanders that if the Democratic Party would do better by all working-class people, it could possibly begin to win back working-class white people in the process, we must not erase the fact that tens of millions of working-class voters simply are not white. Period.

Shaun King, Daily News

The false face of the working class

In my FB battles with some pro-Trump NYC teachers who are clearly immersed in racist attitudes -- like branding medicaid people as too lazy to work and ignoring the massive working poor population - many people of color -- we clearly see that kind of branding King exposes. I wonder how some of these teachers can face students who they believe don't deserve health care because their parents are poor.